- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Frontispiece
- Epigraph
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- How This Book Came About
- Powerful Ideas Dealt with in the Book
-
I The Physical World -
1 Quantum Physics Takes Free Will into Account -
2 Unifying Particle Physics with the Cosmology of the Primordial Universe -
3 For Exoplanets, Anything Is Possible -
4 From Casimir Forces to Black-Body Radiation: Quantum and Thermal Fluctuations -
5 The Challenge of Climate Change -
6 Graphene and Its “Family”: The Finest Materials Ever to Exist -
7 The Laws of Thermodynamics Tell You What Is and What Is Not Possible -
8 Wisdom Hewn in Ancient Stones -
9 Galileo Programme: Planning Uncertainty and Imagining the Possible and the Impossible -
10 Looking Forward in Architecture by Looking Back -
11 The Seamless Coupling of Bits and Atoms -
II Information -
12 Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide -
13 The Logic of Physics versus the Logic of Computer Science -
14 The Pillars of MIT: Innovation, Radical Meritocracy, and Open Knowledge -
15 We Need Algorithms That Can Make Explicit What Is Implicit -
16 The Emergence of a Nonbiological Intelligence -
17 Remembering Our Future: The Frontier of Search Technologies -
18 The Challenge of the Open Dissemination of Knowledge, Distributed Intelligence, and Information Technology -
19 Technology Is Something to Make the World a Better Place -
20 Encryption as a Human Right -
21 Order in Cyberspace Can Only Be Maintained with a Combination of Ethics and Technology -
22 The Free Software Paradigm and the Hacker Ethic -
III Intelligence -
23 “Affective Computing” Is Not an Oxymoron -
24 Mind, Brain, and Behavior -
25 MIT Collaborative Innovation: It Takes >2 to Tango -
26 Mind over Matter: Brain-Machine Interfaces -
27 We Want Robots to See and Understand the World -
28 Between Caves: From Plato to the Brain through the Internet -
29 There Will Be No End of Work -
30 A Smart Mob Is Not Necessarily a Wise Mob -
31 Measuring the Intelligence of Everything -
32 Touching the Soul of Michelangelo -
IV Epilogue -
33 Geometry of a Multidimensional Universe: Weightless Art and the Painting of the Void - Name Index
- Subject Index
Between Caves: From Plato to the Brain through the Internet
Between Caves: From Plato to the Brain through the Internet
- Chapter:
- (p.315) 28 Between Caves: From Plato to the Brain through the Internet
- Source:
- Is the Universe a Hologram?
- Author(s):
Javier Echeverria
Adolfo Plasencia
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
In this dialogue, the philosopher of science and mathematician Javier Echeverria, begins by explaining how Leibniz created the first modern binary system, in which ‘1 and 0’ is capable of expressing everything, - something that marked the beginning of all modern computing and the subsequent digital revolution -, and why there would be no Internet without this language. He then argues why everything that is intelligible cannot be digitized. After, he explains why digitization is part of the invention of writing, how it transforms the world and might imply a great evolutionary step forward. He then rationalizes why we should speak of “intelligences”, in the plural, rather than just one intelligence and why, for him, intelligence is a question of degree. Later in the dialogue, he reflects on collective and “biosocial” intelligence, as well as explaining his vision of the Internet as Plato’s Cave, why he thinks metaverses are possible, and why he believes in the possibility that the universe is a huge hologram. Finally, he describes how our brains are starting to become bionic (“techno-brains”), thus enabling control technologies, and why this digital revolution poses a great challenge for the humanities
Keywords: Digitization, The digital characteristic, Leibniz’s binary language, Third environment, Heightened unconsciousness, Collective intelligence, Plato’s cave, The universe is a hologram, Techno-bodies, Techno-brain
MIT Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Frontispiece
- Epigraph
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- How This Book Came About
- Powerful Ideas Dealt with in the Book
-
I The Physical World -
1 Quantum Physics Takes Free Will into Account -
2 Unifying Particle Physics with the Cosmology of the Primordial Universe -
3 For Exoplanets, Anything Is Possible -
4 From Casimir Forces to Black-Body Radiation: Quantum and Thermal Fluctuations -
5 The Challenge of Climate Change -
6 Graphene and Its “Family”: The Finest Materials Ever to Exist -
7 The Laws of Thermodynamics Tell You What Is and What Is Not Possible -
8 Wisdom Hewn in Ancient Stones -
9 Galileo Programme: Planning Uncertainty and Imagining the Possible and the Impossible -
10 Looking Forward in Architecture by Looking Back -
11 The Seamless Coupling of Bits and Atoms -
II Information -
12 Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide -
13 The Logic of Physics versus the Logic of Computer Science -
14 The Pillars of MIT: Innovation, Radical Meritocracy, and Open Knowledge -
15 We Need Algorithms That Can Make Explicit What Is Implicit -
16 The Emergence of a Nonbiological Intelligence -
17 Remembering Our Future: The Frontier of Search Technologies -
18 The Challenge of the Open Dissemination of Knowledge, Distributed Intelligence, and Information Technology -
19 Technology Is Something to Make the World a Better Place -
20 Encryption as a Human Right -
21 Order in Cyberspace Can Only Be Maintained with a Combination of Ethics and Technology -
22 The Free Software Paradigm and the Hacker Ethic -
III Intelligence -
23 “Affective Computing” Is Not an Oxymoron -
24 Mind, Brain, and Behavior -
25 MIT Collaborative Innovation: It Takes >2 to Tango -
26 Mind over Matter: Brain-Machine Interfaces -
27 We Want Robots to See and Understand the World -
28 Between Caves: From Plato to the Brain through the Internet -
29 There Will Be No End of Work -
30 A Smart Mob Is Not Necessarily a Wise Mob -
31 Measuring the Intelligence of Everything -
32 Touching the Soul of Michelangelo -
IV Epilogue -
33 Geometry of a Multidimensional Universe: Weightless Art and the Painting of the Void - Name Index
- Subject Index